MUCH has been said about the appointment of the new Attorney-General (AG) after the holder Mohamad Apandi Ali was asked to take leave – a courteous way of saying your services are no longer needed.

Apandi was a former officer of the Judicial and Legal Service who resigned to start his own practice and was active in Kelantan Umno. He quit both to join the judiciary as Judicial Commissioner of High Court. He rose steadily to reach the apex court as a Federal Court judge.

When Abdul Gani Patail was sacked Apandi, who was on the verge of mandatory retirement as a judge, resigned his position and was appointed A-G, making him at 66 the oldest A-G of Malaysia.

He completed his contract and was given a new three-year contract but a few weeks later Pakatan Harapan swept into power and Apandi’s position became untenable.

Apandi was not the first contract A-G. In early 1990s Mohtar Abdullah resigned as a High Court judge to take up the position. His successor, Ainum Mohamed Saaid, was also a contract A-G. She was previously the third most senior officer in Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) before retiring to join the corporate sector.

Since the first local A-G, Abdul Kadir Yusuf, all subsequent holders have been appointed with experience from the Judicial and Legal Service. There were attempts to bring in private practitioners but it did not materialise, the last was Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, a prominent lawyer who started his career as deputy public prosecutor – a position in the Judicial and Legal Service.

The A-G has two primary duties. First, he is the legal advisor to the government and secondly, as public prosecutor, he is the highest law enforcement officer of the country – all prosecution must get his consent.

To lawyers, A-G is always referred to as “king of the kings” due to vast powers accorded to him.

Another function people always forget is that the A-G is a top bureaucrat. He is the head of Judicial and Legal service which is one of the government services mentioned in the Constitution.

Currently, there are more than a thousand legally qualified persons working under him in various capacities. In government service, he is the second most senior after the chief secretary.

With this an A-G is expected to be well versed in service matters, proficient in Malay and English and most importantly carries the decorum of a civil servant – work more and speak less. No doubt he will get the limelight like other senior officials such as the chief secretary, the Army chief and the inspector general of police but he is not expected to outshine the cabinet ministers.

Abu Talib Othman is widely considered the best attorney-general so far. An excellent prosecutor, a smart lawyer, decisive but a gentleman, he commanded his department like an army general.

It is learnt that the prime minister has proposed prominent constitutional lawyer, Tommy Thomas as A-G. If his appointment is cleared by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Thomas will create history as the first private practitioner without any experience in government service to be appointed to the post.

I wish to argue here that the A-G should come from among the officers in the AGC. Ideally, he is homegrown, with vast experience in drafting laws, criminal prosecution, civil litigation, international law as well as having served as a state legal advisor.

A lawyer may be called an expert after handling a few specialised cases but his experience is incomparable with the AGC officers who handle hundreds of civil cases, including constitutional ones, on a monthly basis. An AGC officer, once he reaches a senior position like the head of division, has put in more than 20 years in various aspects of law.

He has the experience dealing with the police and government enforcement agencies.

And he is familiar with the workings of the government. A top-notch lawyer does not guarantee success as attorney general.

If the AGC does not have certain expertise or is disqualified to handle a case for apparent bias, a practicing lawyer can be appointed to act as ad hoc prosecutor on fiat. This has been done several times, the last being Shafee’s appointment as prosecutor in Anwar Ibrahim’s case.

Probably the time has come for the A-G to be made answerable to the Parliament. Make it a cabinet appointment and give the power of the public prosecutor to another person of agency. Loading so much powers unto a person who is only answerable to one person i.e. the prime minister is no longer acceptable in this era of openness.

One of the promises of Pakatan Harapan is to have Parliamentary Select Committee to screen candidates for senior government positions. It is not clear at this moment whether the committee’s function is to appoint or confirm a candidate. The latter would require an appointment being made first before the appointee is subjected to tough queries from the members of the committee.

While there is an urgent need to appoint an A-G, the prime minister should be allowed to handle this to the best of his ability.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has vast experience with this sort of appointment. He has the experience of working from the A-G from the ranks of the Judicial and Legal Service i.e. Abu Talib and Abdul Gani, and he has appointed at least two A-Gs on contract i.e. Mohtar and Ainum.

The question of whether the current A-G could cling to his post is not relevant. It was understood Ainum’s contract as A-G was terminated early. She served only for a brief one year before she was succeeded by Abdul Gani.

* Sabirin Ja’afar is a former judicial commissioner.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.